Stallman: The W3C's Soul at Stake

[Posted May 6, 2013 by ris]

Richard Stallman covers a proposal
to specify standards for HTML extensions to implement Digital Restrictions
Management (DRM). "Of course, the W3C cannot prevent companies from grafting DRM onto HTML. They do this through nonfree plug-ins such as Flash, and with nonfree Javascript code, thus showing that we need control over the Javascript code we run and over the C code we run.
However, where the W3C stands is tremendously important for the battle to
eliminate DRM. On a practical level, standardizing DRM would make it more
convenient, in a very shallow sense. This could influence people who think
only of short-term convenience to think of DRM as acceptable, which could
in turn encourage more sites to use DRM." (Thanks to Paul Wise)
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